Pain, pain, go away...

I called the military clinic's nurse advice line last night when I suspected my medicine wasn't working.  My ear infection was way worse and when I told her my symptoms she asked me, "Why didn't you get an appointment with your primary care physician?"  My response:  They told me that they were booked so far out that they couldn't even schedule me an appointment.

So she tried to pull her nurse magic and see if a doctor would be willing to see me after hours.  No such luck.  I understand that.  The doctors' time is valuable, too, and they're not obligated.  However, we have no urgent care here.  The nearest urgent care is more than a 40 mile drive.  We DO have an ER here.  The nurse told me that I needed to see someone within the next few hours.

Apparently my ear infection symptoms weren't normal.

I went to the ER and I was there for almost 3 hours as they tried to get the swelling in my face and neck down.  No such luck, of course.  So now I'm on a super potent antibiotic and an ear drop antibiotic.  They also gave me a numbing ear drop, but I think I'm allergic to it because using that feels like I'm dumping hot oil into my head.  And the pain is NOT temporary.  It lasts for hours, so I am not using it.

There is no improvement from yesterday even with taking the medicine, but I do know that it will take a couple days.  I just wish my swelling would go away.  No amount of Motrin, hot packs, or cold packs has helped, and the numbing ear drops make it worse.  I miss being able to drink from a cup or even eat.  My face is so swollen that my jaw doesn't line up anymore.  I can't move too fast or my head feels like it's being ripped apart.  My head, oh, my goodness, the headache.  I haven't slept more than a couple hours in the last three days because night time is the worst.

Did you know that the barometric pressure changes at night?  Did you know that it makes an ear infection feel like someone's stabbing you in the head with a fire poker!?  Every night from about 8 to midnight I feel like my whole head is just going to pop.

I just don't understand why this had to happen now and not when my husband was on leave and would have been able to help me watch the kids.  Holy run on sentence, Batman!  Sorry, I needed to vent.  I've been running to the bathroom to cry periodically throughout the day because I hurt so much.  My kids aren't much conversation.

I'm off to go load up on Motrin again.